Developing an Infrastructure for Sharing Environmental Models

The Internet and the World Wide Web offer a new solution to the problem of sharing scientific knowledge. Unlike traditional libraries based on print media, these new technologies facilitate the sharing of any information that can be expressed in a binary alphabet. Environmental models expressed as computer codes are instances of such information objects, and codes are the last of a four-stage process of model formulation. The transition to digital technologies changes the relative importance of the four stages. We present a six-stage model of the process of searching for information in distributed digital libraries. Search is made possible by 1 Corresponding author, Department of Geography, University of California, Ellison Hall 3611, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, USA. Phone 1 805 893 8049, FAX 1 805 893 3146, Email [email protected]